The Cowboy
by aMUSEment345
Summary: One shot. Post-ep 15X08, 'Family Tree'.


_**A.N. Post-ep for 15X08, 'Family Tree'**_

* * *

_**The Cowboy**_

_A cowboy? _

As had happened all too often over the past several years, JJ's thoughts had drifted to Reid. Her best friend. The person she relied upon the most, outside of her family. The person she thought of the most, outside of her family. The only man she'd ever truly been in love with, outside of her family.

It had been understandable, at first, that he would be on her mind. After all, he'd been traumatized and falsely imprisoned, in danger of his life and his psyche, because of the machinations of a woman he'd bested in a battle of wits. Of course she'd thought of him. And then he'd been kidnapped, and nearly put to death by the crazed disciple of a man he'd once defeated.

_That's the thing, with Spence_, she thought. _His victories always seem to come back to haunt him._

And then she'd gone and confessed something that hadn't actually demanded confessing. She'd told him that she loved him, and had, for a long time. Ostensibly, it had been to placate a man threatening to kill them, and other hostages.

_But I could have made something up. There was no real reason for me to speak the truth. Did I want him to know? Did I want to know if he loved me, too?_

Maybe. But that would have meant that she hadn't already known, and the truth was, she had. There had simply been too many times that he'd been solicitous of her, too many times he'd sacrificed his comfort, or his time, for her. Too many times their eyes had met, and expressed all of the things they hadn't felt free to say.

So, she'd told him. And then she'd told him again, just a few months ago, after he'd saved her life. After he'd stood by her bedside, crying, and begging her to come back to him. After he'd said those things, thinking she hadn't been able to hear him.

But she had. She'd heard the things he'd said, but hadn't wanted her to hear. And then, weeks later, she'd heard the things he hadn't said, but wanted her to know. And she'd sent him off to his new life, and his new love. But she hadn't stopped thinking about him.

_A cowboy?_

Just as she'd told him when she'd first heard his fantasy job, JJ still had trouble digesting it.

_Why a cowboy? Although..._

_Maybe it makes sense. He did grow up in the southwest, after all. Vegas might be a city, but I know there are ranches not far away. Maybe he spent some time on them, when he was a boy._

Which made her think about how much she still didn't know about him, after all these years.

_He's better at pulling information out of me than I am at pulling it out of him. Which pretty much tells me which of us is the better profiler. _

JJ smiled, as an image came into her mind. _Wrangler Reid. Who would have thought?_

He'd talked about looking at his cattle, and petting them.

_But not herding them. Not preparing them for slaughter. That's definitely the Spence I know. The gentle cowboy._

And he'd volunteered something else to her.

'_You're there.'_

He'd said more, after that. But those words had stayed with her_. 'You're there.'_

He'd moved on from her, emotionally, as much as either of them ever would move on from the other. And yet…

'_You're there._'

'_And Will, and the boys'_, he'd added. He'd included her whole family into his projected future.

_I guess it's not surprising. He loves the boys. And he knows we're a package deal. But I wonder…._

She wondered if it had always been that way, or if he'd had to adjust his projection as their lives had gone in different directions. She wondered if he'd always thought of her as being just a piece of a projected future that didn't revolve around her, or if he'd had to grow into that idea, especially over the past six months. Six weeks, really, since he'd met Max.

_But he told me that he had three or four projected futures. This is just one of them._

A cowboy. To her great surprise, it was becoming easier to imagine, the more she thought about it. Maybe she couldn't quite see him on horseback, though she wondered if a boyhood in the desert might have included such a thing. But she could see him alone in a wide-open landscape, soaking up the quiet, pondering the cloud formations, calculating the distances among the brilliant stars in the night sky. She could imagine him communing with the cows, bonding with the one who liked to wander off by himself. She knew for certain that he would have a special relationship with that one horse, the one who was intuitive enough to know where he wanted to go, and bright enough to lead him home at the end of a long day.

_I wonder how often you would come to visit the flower lady. _

She'd been having a little trouble relating to that part of his projection, because it had been a long time since she'd been a 'flowery' kind of girl. It had made her wonder if it had been some idealized version of her that he'd actually fallen in love with, and not the real thing.

She definitely had her feminine side, and she'd managed to preserve it, early on. But being in the field as a profiler hardly lent itself to the wearing of pencil skirts, or blousy tops. She couldn't even wear her hair down when the situation called for action.

_Maybe it's not so much that he sees an idealized me, but more that he remembers the 'me' I was before I changed my role. The 'me' I kind of miss._

Which was, maybe more than anything, the thing she loved about Spencer Reid. He made her feel more like herself.

_He sees the best part of me, and reminds me that it's still there, even when it's buried under the stress of work, or the need to be 'mom' or 'wife'. He sees me as he met me. Plus. _

Which was when she realized exactly why Reid wanted to be a cowboy.

_He wants to be who he used to be. Before his family fell apart. Before his mother got so sick. Before he knew about things like serial killers, and prison, and torture, and being drugged into addiction. He wants to go back to a life that was simple. And he has to go all the way back to his early childhood to get there._

The simple life appealed to JJ, too, and she began to rethink the idea of owning a flower shop. She'd had trouble coming up with a projected future when the idea had first been raised. But that didn't mean she couldn't inhabit someone else's.

_Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it would be quiet, maybe it would feel safe. Maybe I'd be content. _

Rossi had been in Reid's projection, too, which wasn't surprising, when she thought about it. Once upon a time, he might have mentioned Gideon, or Hotch, or Morgan. But Rossi had been the one to stick it out, and she knew, as well as she knew anything about him, that Spence needed a male figure who knew how to stick it out. So, Rossi would be there, living above a saloon that Wrangler Reid would know about, but rarely visit, eating fine food, drinking fine scotch and pontificating on the state of the world. JJ might have tried to picture him with a saloon girl or two, but she was pretty sure Krystall had filled that particular hole in Rossi's life quite well.

So she pictured Rossi, with Krystall, and herself, with Will. Spence hadn't said it, but she was pretty sure Will was supposed to be the sheriff in their imagined little town. Thinking of the couples made her wonder if the new woman in Reid's life, Max, had made her way into his projected alternate life yet.

_He didn't mention her. Maybe he's not ready yet. Or maybe he's not feeling the need for 'three or four' projected alternates any more. Maybe she's brought something to his real life that makes him want to stay in it._

Maybe it was more that he was letting go of the fantasy that would keep JJ in his life, and beginning to embrace something new, something real, without her. Which meant that she needed to complete her own process of letting go.

_I guess it's time to find my own projection. A future version of me, and Will, and the boys, growing up and doing whatever it is they're meant to do. Me, doing whatever it is I'm meant to do, once my time chasing serial killers is over. Or whenever the darkness out there becomes too much for me to handle._

As had happened before, and would no doubt happen again. She couldn't know if she would leave the BAU by choice or necessity, but she knew that it would, one day, be a thing of her past.

_When that time comes, what will I do? Will I take a desk job somewhere? Land another role in the FBI? Rise up the ranks? Or will I get out altogether and do something completely different? Go teach PE in a high school? Coach soccer? Stay home and be a full time mom? Get a dog, and a minivan?_

She began to trace the trajectory of each of those projected futures, fitting her own path around those of Henry, and Michael and Will. Some of them felt more possible than others, some definitely more desirable than others. But there were some things that served as constants across all of them. If she really immersed herself, in every one of them, she could picture Will walking by her side, and hear Mikey's delighted laughter, and feel Henry giving her a hug before he left for school in the morning. And she could sense something else, too.

The scent of flowers, wafting through the air. And the clippity-clop of a horse's hooves.


End file.
